E-commerce company

Our goal is always to achieve a positive transformation of organisations to allow them to use their technological potential fully and to implement their business strategies. For a better understanding of the essence of our approach and our actions, here is a business case, which is a description of the job performed for one of our customers.

Context

Enterprise

Over a year ago, a very profitable e-commerce company implemented a top cloud CRM system for its customer service team.

The decision was made because of the desire to improve the Contact Centre service process - previously based on Excel files connected to the order management system (OMS) - and the perspective of better social media presence management.

The service provider was selected through the analysis of the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM and the presentation of the two highest-placed companies in the upper right corner of this model. The budget was almost EUR 500,000.

Issues

Contact Centre employees appreciate the very intuitive interface of the new CRM. However, they complain that information about orders does not come into the system on a regular basis, which significantly extends the customer service time. The customers who ask standard questions about the features of products are practically not served due to the excessive load caused by ongoing order processing. This was not an issue in the old system.
Marek, a test RPA chatbot designed for customer support, stopped working.
The brand NPS dropped by 3 points over the past two quarters. The result is also dragged down by the Contact Centre channel survey - a two-digit LFL decline compared to the same period last year.

Job done by Smart Topaz

Detected dysfunctions

Although the company had well-prepared PowerPoint presentations of Customer Journey/Customer Experience Map for the Contact Centre, there was no in-depth business analysis of processes in this area. The company did not employ business analysts (their role was sometimes played by experienced IT system analysts).
There was the following division of competences in the company: marketing provides the business vision and financial resources, while IT independently implements the selected solution.
The organisation did not have software integration standards, nor were there any roles of System Architect or Head of Integration. These functions were sometimes performed by system vendors.

Detected additional dysfunctions

The responsibility for the project until its delivery was borne by the Project Manager from IT, and then the project entered the maintenance phase, with the responsibility being transferred to the Head of Support - also from IT.
The Order Management System (OMS) - a key system for the functioning of CRM - was written entirely by the company and is maintained through internal resources. The system is regularly developed, but no code development or modification methodologies are implemented.

Actions taken

Beginning of cooperation

The agreement was signed following the meeting with the Management Board of the company and key people in the organisation. The agreement covered the examination of and improvement to the following areas:

Defining software requirements,
Software development governance,
Business and technology partnership.

Immediate ad interim employment of an experienced Integration Manager with a dedicated team to improve data exchange between the Order Management System (OMS) and the CRM system.

After the first month

Employment of a 5-person team including 3 experienced business analysts who know very well the CRM system in use in the company and 2 UX designers together with a Smart Topaz partner for six months, who started - together with Marketing and IT - to translate the business vision into specific processes using the customer's experience to embed it in the actual capabilities of the purchased cloud solution.

Smart Topaz offered to create a comprehensive technological strategy of the company so as not to repeat the mistake made with the implementation of CRM and to obtain solid foundations for the company's technological development. The offer was accepted.

After the fourth month

The company's technological strategy was approved by the Management Board. It introduced 6 digital pillars of the organisation, which concerned the principles of software development and connecting IT systems. It established clear rules for the operation of technology teams in an agile matrix structure and defined the division of responsibility for the creation and implementation of software-related functionalities between the business and digital parts of the organisation. It also specified the minimum set of technological roles in the company necessary to implement the strategy.

After the fifth month

The redesigned Contact Centre service processes were approved and the team training began.

Several minor changes to the e-commerce front end were implemented, displaying the information most frequently sought by customers in a visible place.

After the sixth month

CRM was relaunched.